When I got up this morning, there was snow on the ground, ice on the roads and ice on the palm trees. The newscast reported that 200 accidents had happened in just 20 minutes at the start of the commute so they closed all the highways in San Antonio and asked people not to drive anywhere. Wow, I sure am glad that the military postponed Jeffrey’s graduation until 1PM! I wasn’t able to get into my car because it was enveloped in ice. I first had to chip away the handle, and then the door to get in.
By 1PM, it was still below freezing (19 degrees). We got bussed over to Jeffrey’s training facility and were put into one of the classrooms. This is where the impromptu graduation ceremony would take place. All of us were sort of bummed because this ceremony was happening five hours later than originally planned, which meant five hours that we weren’t out in the city having fun. Fortunately, the ceremony was much abbreviated. With that complete, we were shown the dorm rooms. The place was spotless and everything was perfect… due to frequent inspections. Jeffrey kept a drawer full of perfectly folded clothes just for inspections. He wore the clothes that he kept hidden in a different drawer. His bed had perfect hospital corners. Jeffrey needed to get his new orders, so the barracks tour was also abbreviated. On the way to get his new orders, we saw ice dropping from trees, power lines, buildings and lamp posts. It was sort of dangerous to walk around!
Jeffrey got his new orders for tech school (also finally, officially getting his job title: F15 Test Equipment Technician). This took about an hour. Courtney and I shook trees to watch the ice fall down. Thanks to the shortened ceremony, we were still able to get off base by 3:30. Jeffrey wanted to get to Steak N Shake sometime during this trip (since these don’t exist on the West Coast), so that’s where we headed first. It was less spectacular than the one in Florida that we had been to, but it was still good. The next stop was the San Antonio Art Museum, one of the highest rated sites on TripAdvisor. The museum was fairly large and had an impressive collection of Non-Western Art. The American art collection was pretty good and was exceptionally Mexican-heavy. They had a whole room dedicated to Diego Rivera and his followers. The European collection was practically nonexistent, offering only one major piece, a Bouguereau (I love Bouguereau!). All through the museum, we took “bench tour” photos, something my family does. In the old days, I had started taking pictures of my tired and bored kids on benches so I could show them later on in life how much we had tormented them by taking them to museums and historical sites. These days, they practically run to the benches for the photo ops., since it’s now tradition, but they actually like looking at the art and visiting the historical sites. Jeffrey really liked this museum, though he did spend a lot of time looking for the “real” art… the European Art. I guess I had that influence on him, since I’m a European specialist when it comes to art.
Our last stop was another non-West Coast eatery, Dunkin’ Doughnuts. We love the coffee (it’s the only thing we brew at home), and hate the service, but this is another tradition we have started – stopping at every Dunkin’ Doughnuts place we find, getting coffee, then complaining about the bad service. It made for a perfect end to our day.